Slavoj Zizek: Lacan and the Virtual Triad | Video Lecture Series (1/3)
Lecture · Philosofried ·
2020-01-19 · 0:26:19 · 2,922 words
technology-ai-cyberspacepsychoanalysishegel-dialecticsideologycinema-art-culturescience-physicsfascism-populismgeopolitics-warsubjectivity
Žižek argues that 'virtual reality' is a trivial notion and that the real stakes lie in 'the reality of the virtual', real effects produced by what is not yet fully actual. Working through Lacan's imaginary/symbolic/real triad, he unfolds three virtualities (imaginary, symbolic, real) and three reals (imaginary, symbolic, real), illustrating each with the idealization of the other, virtual authority, presupposed belief, quantum physics, the obscene shadow of military ritual, and the cinema of Altman and The Sound of Music. He adds Rumsfeld's missing fourth category, the 'unknown knowns' of the unconscious, to the political matrix, and closes by reversing Freud's theory of trauma on the model of Einstein's reversal of relativity: the primordial fact is not a traumatic real that intrudes and curves symbolic space, but a purely formal imbalance of which the traumatic real is a lure.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 20
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
He dismisses it as a miserable idea, merely reproducing our experience of reality in an artificial digital medium.
as “the reality of the virtual”
His inversion: real effects (efficacy, effectiveness) produced by something which does not yet fully exist, which is not yet fully actual.
as “real virtual”
The most paradoxical level of the triad: a shape or antagonism that does not exist in itself but structures the disposition of actually existing elements (modeled on the mathematical attractor).
Authority and belief operative precisely by remaining virtual, a threat not enacted, a belief presupposed in another rather than directly held.
Abstracting embarrassing features (defecating, sweating) from our image of the other in interaction, dealing with a virtual image that nonetheless structures how we relate.
as “symbolic authority”
Authority operative only as long as it remains a virtual threat; fully enacted (the father who beats and shouts) it becomes ridiculous and self-destructive.
as “cynical ideology”
In our 'so-called cynical era' nobody actually believes, yet beliefs still function because everyone presupposes someone else believes.
as “virtual belief”
Belief that functions socially only by being attributed to or presupposed in another, nobody has to actually believe, only to presuppose another believer.
Lacan's triad as a knot, the three orders interwoven, each reflected into the others, so that there is an imaginary real, symbolic real and real real (and likewise three virtualities).
Traumatic images too strong to be directly perceived, monsters, sci-fi/horror's 'the thing', but still images; the Lacanian real reflected into the imaginary.
Functioning but meaningless signifiers, like quantum-physics formulas that work experimentally but resist translation into any ontology of ordinary experience.
The shadowy virtual reality of affects (e.g. Marines' obscene marching chants) that sustains the official discipline of the symbolic order.
A film's micro-signs/virtual texture can carry a message opposite to its explicit narrative, the real virtual read against the narrative reality.
Beliefs that function socially only by remaining virtual; too-immediate belief is self-destructive for ideology and turns the subject into a puppet.
His fourth addition to Rumsfeld's matrix: things we don't know we know, unconscious fantasies and prejudices that are part of our identity and determine our activity.
Rumsfeld's missing fourth category, the 'unknown knowns', things we don't know we know, which determine our activity without being controlled.
as “trauma”
In the second Freudian shift, not a brute intruding real but a lure accounting for a primordial formal imbalance of symbolic space.
as “trauma as formal curvature”
His recasting of trauma on the model of Einstein's reversal: the curvature/antagonism of symbolic space is primordial, and the traumatic real is a fetishist lure that accounts for it.
as “fetishism”
Via Einstein: what we perceive as matter is a 'fetishist misperception' of a purely formal curvature of space.
Lacan's minimum definition: that which resists symbolization, inclusion into our universe of meaning.
Stories he reaches for 5
Rumsfeld named known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns before the Iraq war, but stopped short of the fourth category, the 'unknown knowns': things we don't know we know (the unconscious), which Žižek calls the crucial level missing from American politics.
“Things we don't know we know them. We know them, they are part of our identity, they determine our activity, but we don't know that we know them.”
Parents pretend to believe in Santa for the children; children pretend back so as not to disappoint parents and keep the presents coming, nobody believes, everyone presupposes another believes.
“if somebody asks you 'do you really believe in Santa Claus, Christmas?', you would say 'no, I just pretend because of the children, not to disappoint them.'”
Officially an anti-fascist resistance story, but its texture depicts Austrians as smallish provincial fascists and Nazis as cosmopolitan decadent (almost caricature-Jew) figures, so the virtual message is honest fascists resisting decadent Jewish cosmopolitan takeover, addressing our secret fascist dreams.
“honest fascists resisting decadent Jewish cosmopolitan takeover.”
Sci-fi/horror's 'the thing', terrifying creatures in films like Alien, images too strong to be directly confronted, but still images: the imaginary real.
“These terrifying creatures, too strong to be directly confronted, but nonetheless it's imaginary because it's an image which is too strong to be confronted.”
Iron filings dispersed around a magnetic field follow a shape that doesn't exist in itself, only an abstract form structuring the disposition of actually existing elements; this is the model of the virtual real.
“It's a shape—this is the real of this field—but it's not, it doesn't exist in itself.”
Works invoked 3
The Sound of Music film
Officially an anti-fascist resistance story, but its texture depicts Austrians as provincial fascists and Nazis as decadent cosmopolitans (caricature-Jews), Žižek exposes its secret fascist dream; 'great achievement of Western civilization' used sardonically.
Short Cuts film
Altman's 'masterpiece'; beneath its narrative of LA alienation its texture celebrates the magic of contingent encounters generating unexpected effects of meaning.
Alien film
Its terrifying creatures exemplify the imaginary real, images too strong to be directly confronted, but still images.
People invoked 7
Iraqi Minister of Information positive
Mocked for denying the obvious, but Žižek says his line 'Americans don't control even themselves' was 'absolutely true', they don't know what they know.
Named as the referent of Rumsfeld's 'known known' (the president of Iraq) and the supposed holder of unknown weapons.
Jacques Lacan positive
His imaginary/symbolic/real triad is the backbone of the talk; Žižek defines the Real as 'that which resists symbolization' and treats the triad as a knot reflected into each of its terms.
Donald Rumsfeld positive
Žižek credits Rumsfeld's known/unknown matrix as 'an important contribution to contemporary American philosophical debate' but adds the missing fourth category (unknown knowns) and calls American politics tragic for ignoring it.
Robert Altman positive
Director of Short Cuts, which Žižek calls a 'masterpiece' and reads as a celebration of contingent encounters beneath its social-critical narrative.
Sigmund Freud positive
Žižek reads Freud's shift on trauma as parallel to Einstein's shift on relativity, from a traumatic real intruding and curving symbolic space to a primordial formal imbalance.
Albert Einstein positive
His reversal (curvature of space primordial, matter a fetishist misperception) is the model for Žižek's reversal of trauma; Žižek calls it 'a wonderful reversal.'
What it argues
'reality of the virtual' vs virtual realitythe three virtualities: imaginary, symbolic, realvirtual authority and presupposed belieftexture vs narrative in cinema (the real virtual)unknown knowns — the unconscious in politicstrauma as formal curvature, not intruding real
Dialectical moves 8
“not virtual reality, but the reality of the virtual”
The true issue isn't simulating reality digitally but tracking the real effects of what isn't yet actual.
“symbolic authority is actual only as virtual; fully actualized it is self-destructive”
Authority is operative precisely by remaining a virtual threat; once the threat is enacted it undermines itself.
“nobody effectively believes, yet everybody presupposes someone else to believe, and the belief is actual”
Belief functions socially only as virtual, presupposed in another; direct belief is monstrous and self-destructive.
“The Sound of Music's texture carries the very opposite message of its narrative”
The film's true (virtual) message is the opposite of its explicit story, fascist dreams beneath democratic anti-fascism.
“Rumsfeld's matrix is completed by the missing fourth — the 'unknown knowns'”
The category Rumsfeld missed, the unconscious, is the crucial one; the real gap is what we don't know we know.
“not the presence of matter which curves space, but the curvature of space which is primordial — matter is its fetishist misperception”
Einstein's reversal makes the formal primordial; matter is a reified misperception of a purely formal curvature.
“the primordial fact is not a brutal intrusion of the real but a purely formal imbalance — the traumatic real is a lure”
Trauma isn't a real that intrudes and curves symbolic space; the formal imbalance of the symbolic is primordial, and the traumatic real is a trap.
“the virtual real is a shape that doesn't exist in itself but structures the disposition of actually existing elements”
Like a magnetic attractor, the virtual real is an absent form that nonetheless organizes the actual.
Claims 14
rejects
Virtual reality is a trivial idea — merely reproducing our experience of reality in an artificial digital medium.virtual reality
asserts
The crucial notion is not virtual reality but the reality of the virtual — real effects generated by what is not yet fully actual.the reality of the virtual
asserts
In everyday interaction we deal not with the real other but with a virtual image that abstracts embarrassing features, and this idealization structures how we relate.imaginary virtual / idealization
asserts
Symbolic authority is operative only insofar as it remains virtual as a threat; fully enacted it becomes ridiculous and self-destructive.symbolic authority
asserts
Beliefs function socially only by remaining virtual — nobody has to actually believe, only to presuppose another believer.virtual belief
asserts
In our cynical era nobody believes in democracy, yet we maintain appearances so as not to disappoint a purely virtual entity.democracy / cynical ideology
asserts
Direct, immediate identification with one's religious or political beliefs is monstrous — the subject turns into a puppet, no longer a real person.ideological identification
asserts
Quantum physics is the symbolic real: formulas that function experimentally but resist translation into any consistent ontology of ordinary reality.symbolic real / quantum physics
reframes
The Sound of Music's narrative (anti-fascist resistance) is contradicted by its texture, which depicts honest fascists resisting decadent Jewish cosmopolitan takeover.Sound of Music / texture vs narrative
reframes
Short Cuts is not a social critique of alienation but, at the level of its texture, a celebration of contingent encounters generating unexpected meaning.Short Cuts
reframes
Rumsfeld's known/unknown matrix missed the crucial fourth category — the 'unknown knowns,' things we don't know we know (the unconscious).unknown knowns / Rumsfeld
asserts
The tragedy of American politics is its unawareness of these unknown knowns, which control its activity without being controlled.American politics
reframes
Freud's shift on trauma parallels Einstein's reversal: the primordial fact is not a traumatic real intruding into and curving symbolic space, but a purely formal imbalance — the traumatic real is a lure.trauma
asserts
In Einstein's general relativity, matter is a reified fetishist misperception of a purely formal curvature of space.matter / curvature (via Einstein)
Quotes 13
“I think frankly that virtual reality is rather miserable idea. It simply means let us reproduce in an artificial digital medium our experience of reality.”Slavoj Žižek · critique of VR
“not virtual reality, but the reality of the virtual... real effects produced, generated by something which does not yet fully exist, which is not yet fully actual.”Slavoj Žižek · the core thesis
“it's actual only as virtual. If it's fully actualized as a realized threat, father beats you, shouts at you, it's self-destructive. It undermines itself as authority.”Slavoj Žižek · virtual authority
“although nobody effectively believes, it is enough that everybody presupposes someone else to believe, and the belief is actual, it structures reality, it functions.”Slavoj Žižek · virtual belief
“I don't think anyone believes in democracy, but nonetheless we want to maintain appearances.”Slavoj Žižek · cynical ideology
“There is something monstrous about somebody who directly identifies with it. It is as if he or she is no longer a real person. As if he or she turns into a kind of a puppet.”Slavoj Žižek · direct ideological identification
“It just works, but if you try to build a consistent ontology out of it, again you get meaningless results. You get time running backwards, you get parallel universes or whatever.”Slavoj Žižek · quantum physics as symbolic real
“honest fascists resisting decadent Jewish cosmopolitan takeover.”Slavoj Žižek · Sound of Music's secret message
“Things we don't know we know them. We know them, they are part of our identity, they determine our activity, but we don't know that we know them.”Slavoj Žižek · unknown knowns
“And this, what you don't know that you know, controls you, but you don't control it.”Slavoj Žižek · unconscious control
“what we perceive as matter is just a kind of reified, fetishist misperception of a purely formal curvature of the space.”Slavoj Žižek · matter as fetish
“The primordial fact is not some brutal intrusion of the real, of a traumatic real. The primordial fact, and also the primordial real, is a purely formal imbalance.”Slavoj Žižek · trauma as formal
“It's a shape—this is the real of this field—but it's not, it doesn't exist in itself. It's just an abstract form which structures the disposition of actually existing elements around it.”Slavoj Žižek · virtual real as attractor
Transcript 13 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Today everybody's talking about virtual reality. But I think frankly that virtual reality is rather miserable idea. It simply means let us reproduce in an artificial digital medium our experience of reality.
Today everybody's talking about virtual reality. But I think frankly that virtual reality is rather miserable idea. It simply means let us reproduce in an artificial digital medium our experience of reality.
unknown
television raw oysters television
television raw oysters television
Slavoj Žižek
I think that a much more interesting notion, crucial to understand what goes on today, is the opposite: not virtual reality, but the reality of the virtual. That is to say reality, by this I mean efficacy, effectiveness, real effects produced, generated by something which does not yet fully exist, which is not yet fully actual. In what sense can we talk about this? Oh, in many, maybe even too many senses. At least in three senses, if we take as the starting point the well-known Lacanian triad of imaginary, symbolic, and real. We have, to put it in simple terms, a imaginary virtual, symbolic virtual, and real virtual. First, imaginary virtual. What it is? Isn't it clear if we look at our most common daily experience of ourselves and of others, that how when we deal with another person phenomenologically, that is to say the way we immediately experience them, we erase, abstract from the image of the other person, our partner, certain features which are simply too embarrassing to be kept in mind all the time. Like I talk to you, of course rationally I know you are defecating, you are sweating, not to mention other things, but quite literally when I interact with you, this is not part of the image I have of you. So when I deal with you, I'm basically not dealing with the real you. I'm dealing with the virtual image of you. And this image has reality in the sense that it nonetheless structures the way I am dealing with you. And again, this idealization is crucial. So okay, this would be the first elementary level: imaginary virtual, in the sense of the virtual image which determines how we interact with other people. Second level, already a more complex one, symbolic virtual. Think about an experience known well to all of us, of experiencing authority. Let us say paternal authority. Isn't it clear that this authority, in order to be operative, in order to be experienced precisely—that's the nice paradox—in order to be experienced as actual, effective authority, it has to remain virtual. Virtual in the sense of a threat. If authority is enacted too directly, it is paradoxically experienced as a sign of impotence. Concretely: father who truly is an authority doesn't have to beat you or to shout at you and so on. It's just this look, a threatening look, and you obey. If your father loses his nerves and slaps you, starts to shout and so on, it can be physically painful, but let's admit it, there is always an aspect of something ridiculous, impotent. There is something of a furious outburst of a puppet, of a clown in it. Again, this is then one clear example of how symbolic authority, in order to be operative—that's the paradox I want to emphasize—has to remain virtual. So it's not just it is actual already as virtual. No, it's actual only as virtual. If it's fully actualized as a realized threat, father beats you, shouts at you, it's self-destructive. It undermines itself as authority. Another example of how the virtual dimension is operative at the symbolic level would have been beliefs. Are we aware to what extent our beliefs today are virtual? By virtual I mean in this case attributed to others, presupposed. They don't actually exist, they are virtual in the sense that nobody really has to believe. We only have to presuppose another person to believe. Elementary example which I am almost embarrassed to mention: if you are a father, a mother, small children, Christmas. Of course, if somebody asks you "do you really believe in Santa Claus, Christmas?", you would say "no, I just pretend because of the children, not to disappoint them." But then we know how the game goes on and on. If you ask the children, they say "no, we just play that we are naive, not to disappoint our parents and to make it sure that we get the presents" and so on and so on. But it's not only with children. It's even with our political life, I'm tempted to claim. In our so-called cynical era, for example, I don't think anyone believes in democracy, but nonetheless we want to maintain appearances. That is to say there is some purely virtual entity whom we do not want to disappoint, who has to be kept innocent, ignorant, because of whom we have to pretend. So the paradox is that although nobody effectively believes, it is enough that everybody presupposes someone else to believe, and the belief is actual, it structures reality, it functions. I'm tempted to claim that many of our daily beliefs, in order to function socially as beliefs, have to remain virtual in this sense. Because if we believe too immediately, then I think it's again self-destructive for an ideology. We no longer appear normal subjects, we appear idiots. We all know how it is when we encounter somebody who takes too directly his or her religious beliefs or political beliefs. There is something monstrous about somebody who directly identifies with it. It is as if he or she is no longer a real person. As if he or she turns into a kind of a puppet. So, I hope now these two levels are relatively clear. The first two levels of virtuality: imaginary virtuality, symbolic virtuality. But now, of course, the true treasure is waiting for us: real virtuality. So, the real virtual. Well, the problem here, the catch, of course, is the notion of the real. So, this may appear boring, but we have to go again through the triad imaginary, symbolic, real. Because when Lacan defines this triad as the triad of a knot, it means that they are literally interwoven in the sense that the entire triad is reflected into each of the three terms. Which means, to put it bluntly, that there is again imaginary real, symbolic real, and real real. What would be the imaginary real? Images, but images which are so strong, so traumatic, that they are real. Too strong to be perceived, but still images. Think about incredible, breathtaking
I think that a much more interesting notion, crucial to understand what goes on today, is the opposite: not virtual reality, but the reality of the virtual. That is to say reality, by this I mean efficacy, effectiveness, real effects produced, generated by something which does not yet fully exist, which is not yet fully actual. In what sense can we talk about this? Oh, in many, maybe even too many senses. At least in three senses, if we take as the starting point the well-known Lacanian triad of imaginary, symbolic, and real. We have, to put it in simple terms, a imaginary virtual, symbolic virtual, and real virtual. First, imaginary virtual. What it is? Isn't it clear if we look at our most common daily experience of ourselves and of others, that how when we deal with another person phenomenologically, that is to say the way we immediately experience them, we erase, abstract from the image of the other person, our partner, certain features which are simply too embarrassing to be kept in mind all the time. Like I talk to you, of course rationally I know you are defecating, you are sweating, not to mention other things, but quite literally when I interact with you, this is not part of the image I have of you. So when I deal with you, I'm basically not dealing with the real you. I'm dealing with the virtual image of you. And this image has reality in the sense that it nonetheless structures the way I am dealing with you. And again, this idealization is crucial. So okay, this would be the first elementary level: imaginary virtual, in the sense of the virtual image which determines how we interact with other people. Second level, already a more complex one, symbolic virtual. Think about an experience known well to all of us, of experiencing authority. Let us say paternal authority. Isn't it clear that this authority, in order to be operative, in order to be experienced precisely—that's the nice paradox—in order to be experienced as actual, effective authority, it has to remain virtual. Virtual in the sense of a threat. If authority is enacted too directly, it is paradoxically experienced as a sign of impotence. Concretely: father who truly is an authority doesn't have to beat you or to shout at you and so on. It's just this look, a threatening look, and you obey. If your father loses his nerves and slaps you, starts to shout and so on, it can be physically painful, but let's admit it, there is always an aspect of something ridiculous, impotent. There is something of a furious outburst of a puppet, of a clown in it. Again, this is then one clear example of how symbolic authority, in order to be operative—that's the paradox I want to emphasize—has to remain virtual. So it's not just it is actual already as virtual. No, it's actual only as virtual. If it's fully actualized as a realized threat, father beats you, shouts at you, it's self-destructive. It undermines itself as authority. Another example of how the virtual dimension is operative at the symbolic level would have been beliefs. Are we aware to what extent our beliefs today are virtual? By virtual I mean in this case attributed to others, presupposed. They don't actually exist, they are virtual in the sense that nobody really has to believe. We only have to presuppose another person to believe. Elementary example which I am almost embarrassed to mention: if you are a father, a mother, small children, Christmas. Of course, if somebody asks you "do you really believe in Santa Claus, Christmas?", you would say "no, I just pretend because of the children, not to disappoint them." But then we know how the game goes on and on. If you ask the children, they say "no, we just play that we are naive, not to disappoint our parents and to make it sure that we get the presents" and so on and so on. But it's not only with children. It's even with our political life, I'm tempted to claim. In our so-called cynical era, for example, I don't think anyone believes in democracy, but nonetheless we want to maintain appearances. That is to say there is some purely virtual entity whom we do not want to disappoint, who has to be kept innocent, ignorant, because of whom we have to pretend. So the paradox is that although nobody effectively believes, it is enough that everybody presupposes someone else to believe, and the belief is actual, it structures reality, it functions. I'm tempted to claim that many of our daily beliefs, in order to function socially as beliefs, have to remain virtual in this sense. Because if we believe too immediately, then I think it's again self-destructive for an ideology. We no longer appear normal subjects, we appear idiots. We all know how it is when we encounter somebody who takes too directly his or her religious beliefs or political beliefs. There is something monstrous about somebody who directly identifies with it. It is as if he or she is no longer a real person. As if he or she turns into a kind of a puppet. So, I hope now these two levels are relatively clear. The first two levels of virtuality: imaginary virtuality, symbolic virtuality. But now, of course, the true treasure is waiting for us: real virtuality. So, the real virtual. Well, the problem here, the catch, of course, is the notion of the real. So, this may appear boring, but we have to go again through the triad imaginary, symbolic, real. Because when Lacan defines this triad as the triad of a knot, it means that they are literally interwoven in the sense that the entire triad is reflected into each of the three terms. Which means, to put it bluntly, that there is again imaginary real, symbolic real, and real real. What would be the imaginary real? Images, but images which are so strong, so traumatic, that they are real. Too strong to be perceived, but still images. Think about incredible, breathtaking
unknown
catastrophes. Think about monsters. Think about precisely what in science fiction or horror is called "the thing." Think about movies
catastrophes. Think about monsters. Think about precisely what in science fiction or horror is called "the thing." Think about movies
Slavoj Žižek
like *Alien*. These terrifying creatures, too strong to be directly confronted, but nonetheless it's imaginary because it's an image which is too strong to be confronted. Even if you cannot confront it, we are still moving at the
like *Alien*. These terrifying creatures, too strong to be directly confronted, but nonetheless it's imaginary because it's an image which is too strong to be confronted. Even if you cannot confront it, we are still moving at the
unknown
imaginary
imaginary
Slavoj Žižek
level. That would be the imaginary real. Then, the symbolic real. For example, scientific formulas like quantum physics. Why is this real? For a simple reason. The minimum definition of the real for Lacan is that which resists symbolization, inclusion into our universe of meaning. And isn't it that precisely which happens, for example, with quantum physics? What is quantum physics? Formulas which work, experimentally confirmed and so on and so on, but we cannot translate them into our daily experience of ordinary reality. As we all know, this is what is so traumatic about quantum physics. We literally cannot understand it. Not in the sense that we common people, idiots, cannot understand it, only a couple of scientists can. Even they cannot. It just works, but if you try to build a consistent ontology out of it, again you get meaningless results. You get time running backwards, you get parallel universes or whatever. In other words, you get things which simply are meaningless with regard to our ordinary notion of reality. So this would be symbolic real. Symbolic, obviously it is symbolic: formulas, pure signifiers. They function, it's a functioning machine, but meaningless. We cannot make any sense out of it. We cannot relate it to our experience. Which is why we try so desperately to do it, which is why we try to invent metaphors to imagine quantum universe, but it cannot be done. Then, finally, we are coming to the real real, which is precisely not what is usually identified as the real. This would have been the first real, the imaginary real, a too traumatic image. What then is this famous real real, the very core of the real? Let me approach it at two levels. The first level is still relatively close to the symbolic order. It would have been all that accompanies the symbolic level as its obscene shadow. Think about army units, how they function. You have discipline, symbolic machine, symbolic order, drill and so on. But as we all know, this is sustained by a kind of obscene, shadowy reality of, among other things, so-called marching chants. In every movie about the Marines, you hear them. These songs which are extremely interesting, songs that soldiers sing while they are training, marching. Because they are characterized by meaningless rhymes combined with sadistic or sexually perverse obscenities. One example that I remember where Marines are singing something like "I don't know but I was told that Eskimo pussies are mighty cold." The enigma is, again, why does the military discourse need this? So this would be one level, this shadowy virtual reality of affects which has to accompany the official discourse. But let's move a little bit deeper. Let's think about, well, one of the great achievements of Western civilization, a movie like *The Sound of Music*. Officially, as we all know, it's a story about small anti-fascist democratic Austrians—at the political level, that is to say, I will leave out all the singing aspect—small honest democratic Austrians fighting, resisting the Nazi occupation of Austria in '38. But, but look at the movie really closely, look at its texture. And you will discover a quite different reality, a kind of a virtual reality of the officially depicted narrative reality. If you look at how Austrians are depicted in the movie, you will discover, to cut a long story short, that they are precisely depicted as a kind of smallish beautiful provincial fascists. Their idiocy is emphasized, local folkloric dresses and so on. They are presented directly as anti-intellectual, rooted in narrow life-world and so on. Now, look at how the occupying invading Nazis are presented. They are not mostly soldiers, but managers, bureaucrats, exquisitely dressed, with short mustaches, smoking expensive cigarettes and so on. In other words, almost a caricature of cosmopolitan decadent corrupted Jew. So that's my point. At the level of simple narrative reality, we get one message: democratic resistance to Nazism. But at the level of, let's call it, virtual texture, all these micro signs—maybe we could even call it writing—we get practically the opposite message, which is: honest fascists resisting decadent Jewish cosmopolitan takeover. And incidentally, maybe this is at least one of the reasons why this movie was so extremely popular. While officially agreeing with our democratic ideology, it at the same time addresses our secret fascist dreams. But let's take a more serious example: Robert Altman
level. That would be the imaginary real. Then, the symbolic real. For example, scientific formulas like quantum physics. Why is this real? For a simple reason. The minimum definition of the real for Lacan is that which resists symbolization, inclusion into our universe of meaning. And isn't it that precisely which happens, for example, with quantum physics? What is quantum physics? Formulas which work, experimentally confirmed and so on and so on, but we cannot translate them into our daily experience of ordinary reality. As we all know, this is what is so traumatic about quantum physics. We literally cannot understand it. Not in the sense that we common people, idiots, cannot understand it, only a couple of scientists can. Even they cannot. It just works, but if you try to build a consistent ontology out of it, again you get meaningless results. You get time running backwards, you get parallel universes or whatever. In other words, you get things which simply are meaningless with regard to our ordinary notion of reality. So this would be symbolic real. Symbolic, obviously it is symbolic: formulas, pure signifiers. They function, it's a functioning machine, but meaningless. We cannot make any sense out of it. We cannot relate it to our experience. Which is why we try so desperately to do it, which is why we try to invent metaphors to imagine quantum universe, but it cannot be done. Then, finally, we are coming to the real real, which is precisely not what is usually identified as the real. This would have been the first real, the imaginary real, a too traumatic image. What then is this famous real real, the very core of the real? Let me approach it at two levels. The first level is still relatively close to the symbolic order. It would have been all that accompanies the symbolic level as its obscene shadow. Think about army units, how they function. You have discipline, symbolic machine, symbolic order, drill and so on. But as we all know, this is sustained by a kind of obscene, shadowy reality of, among other things, so-called marching chants. In every movie about the Marines, you hear them. These songs which are extremely interesting, songs that soldiers sing while they are training, marching. Because they are characterized by meaningless rhymes combined with sadistic or sexually perverse obscenities. One example that I remember where Marines are singing something like "I don't know but I was told that Eskimo pussies are mighty cold." The enigma is, again, why does the military discourse need this? So this would be one level, this shadowy virtual reality of affects which has to accompany the official discourse. But let's move a little bit deeper. Let's think about, well, one of the great achievements of Western civilization, a movie like *The Sound of Music*. Officially, as we all know, it's a story about small anti-fascist democratic Austrians—at the political level, that is to say, I will leave out all the singing aspect—small honest democratic Austrians fighting, resisting the Nazi occupation of Austria in '38. But, but look at the movie really closely, look at its texture. And you will discover a quite different reality, a kind of a virtual reality of the officially depicted narrative reality. If you look at how Austrians are depicted in the movie, you will discover, to cut a long story short, that they are precisely depicted as a kind of smallish beautiful provincial fascists. Their idiocy is emphasized, local folkloric dresses and so on. They are presented directly as anti-intellectual, rooted in narrow life-world and so on. Now, look at how the occupying invading Nazis are presented. They are not mostly soldiers, but managers, bureaucrats, exquisitely dressed, with short mustaches, smoking expensive cigarettes and so on. In other words, almost a caricature of cosmopolitan decadent corrupted Jew. So that's my point. At the level of simple narrative reality, we get one message: democratic resistance to Nazism. But at the level of, let's call it, virtual texture, all these micro signs—maybe we could even call it writing—we get practically the opposite message, which is: honest fascists resisting decadent Jewish cosmopolitan takeover. And incidentally, maybe this is at least one of the reasons why this movie was so extremely popular. While officially agreeing with our democratic ideology, it at the same time addresses our secret fascist dreams. But let's take a more serious example: Robert Altman
unknown
masterpiece
masterpiece
Slavoj Žižek
*Short Cuts*. Again, at the narrative level, we get a simple story, or rather nine and ten stories, parallel stories, depicting desperate everyday life of Los Angeles, LA middle classes. It's a portrait of today's alienation, solitude and so on. But again, the very texture of the film, I claim, is a much more optimistic one. It's a kind of celebration of this magic of contingent encounters generating unexpected effects of meaning. So I think that in a similar way to how we should read *Sound of Music*, it is wrong to read *Short Cuts* simply as kind of a social critical piece. There is another much more optimistic, life-asserting even, level. So, to provide the formula of this real virtual, let me refer to a recent paradoxical statement by none other than Donald Rumsfeld. I think that this statement was an important contribution to contemporary American philosophical debate. This happened in March just before the war on Iraq, where Rumsfeld elaborated the relationship between known and unknown. First he said there are "known knowns," there are things we know that we know, like we knew at that point that Saddam was the president of Iraq. Okay, everything clear. Then he went on: there are "known unknowns," there are things that we know that we don't know. The idea was, for example, we know that we don't know how many weapons of mass destruction Saddam has. Okay, now we know he had none, doesn't matter, at that point it appeared like this. Then there is the "unknown unknown," things we don't know that we don't know, things which are so foreign, so unimaginable that we even don't know that we don't know. For example, maybe Saddam had some unimaginable, totally unexpected weapon. And here unfortunately Rumsfeld stopped, because I think he should have gone on, making the next step to the fourth category, fourth variation which is missing, which is not the "known unknowns" but the "unknown knowns." Things we don't know we know them. We know them, they are part of our identity, they determine our activity, but we don't know that we know them. This is what in psychoanalysis of course is called unconscious. Unconscious fantasies, unconscious prejudices and so on and so on. And I think that this level is crucial. And the tragedy of today's American politics, I think, is that precisely they are not aware of these "unknown knowns." Which is why there was a deep truth in one of the statements of that unfortunate Iraqi Minister of Information. We were all laughing at him during the last Iraq War because of his ridiculous statements denying the obvious. But at one point, I claim, what he told was absolutely true. When towards the end of the war he was asked "is it true that Americans already control, American forces, part of the Baghdad airport?", he said "not true, Americans don't control even themselves." Perfect truth. Why? Because they don't know what they know. And this, what you don't know that you know, controls you, but you don't control it. Okay, so now we come to the really real, real core of the real, much more fundamental than this still symbolic real, but which paradoxically is at the same time the most virtual real. Let us think about attractors in mathematics. For example, you have small pieces of iron and you throw them around a magnetic field. They are dispersed, following a certain shape, infinitely approaching this shape, but this shape of course is not existing it itself. It's just something that you can abstract, isolate from the dispersion of the small pieces of iron. That's the idea of virtual real. It's a shape—this is the real of this field—but it's not, it doesn't exist in itself. It's just an abstract form which structures the disposition of actually existing elements around it. Now, what has this to do with psychoanalytic problematic or even more with political problematic? My idea is: a lot. Let's think about the precise status of trauma in psychoanalysis. That is to say, more closely, Freud shifted his position, as we all know, with regard to trauma. He shifted his position in a way which is strangely enough parallel to the shift in Einstein's theory of relativity, the shift from a special to general theory of relativity. This shift in theory of relativity concerns the reference to the curved space, curvature of space. As most of us I hope know, for Einstein first, in a first approach, it was the presence of the density of matter, of stuff, which curved the space. Space was originally perceived as empty space, abstractly was symmetrical, non-curved, then the presence of stuff curves it. But then, in a second step, Einstein accomplished a wonderful reversal. He just turned the terms around. It was not the presence of matter, of stuff, which curves the space; it was on the contrary the curvature of the space which was primordial. And what we perceive as matter is just a kind of reified, fetishist misperception of a purely formal curvature of the space. And I claim it's exactly like this in the psychoanalytic notion of trauma. In a first approach, Freud imagined trauma as some kind of dense, raw presence, brutal intrudes into our symbolic space and curves it. Quite literally, let's imagine that I have my well-balanced symbolic space, then something traumatic happens to me, I'm raped, I witness a terrifying event, I'm tortured, whatever. And because of the traumatic impact of this event, my symbolic space gets curved. Some things can no longer be symbolized,
*Short Cuts*. Again, at the narrative level, we get a simple story, or rather nine and ten stories, parallel stories, depicting desperate everyday life of Los Angeles, LA middle classes. It's a portrait of today's alienation, solitude and so on. But again, the very texture of the film, I claim, is a much more optimistic one. It's a kind of celebration of this magic of contingent encounters generating unexpected effects of meaning. So I think that in a similar way to how we should read *Sound of Music*, it is wrong to read *Short Cuts* simply as kind of a social critical piece. There is another much more optimistic, life-asserting even, level. So, to provide the formula of this real virtual, let me refer to a recent paradoxical statement by none other than Donald Rumsfeld. I think that this statement was an important contribution to contemporary American philosophical debate. This happened in March just before the war on Iraq, where Rumsfeld elaborated the relationship between known and unknown. First he said there are "known knowns," there are things we know that we know, like we knew at that point that Saddam was the president of Iraq. Okay, everything clear. Then he went on: there are "known unknowns," there are things that we know that we don't know. The idea was, for example, we know that we don't know how many weapons of mass destruction Saddam has. Okay, now we know he had none, doesn't matter, at that point it appeared like this. Then there is the "unknown unknown," things we don't know that we don't know, things which are so foreign, so unimaginable that we even don't know that we don't know. For example, maybe Saddam had some unimaginable, totally unexpected weapon. And here unfortunately Rumsfeld stopped, because I think he should have gone on, making the next step to the fourth category, fourth variation which is missing, which is not the "known unknowns" but the "unknown knowns." Things we don't know we know them. We know them, they are part of our identity, they determine our activity, but we don't know that we know them. This is what in psychoanalysis of course is called unconscious. Unconscious fantasies, unconscious prejudices and so on and so on. And I think that this level is crucial. And the tragedy of today's American politics, I think, is that precisely they are not aware of these "unknown knowns." Which is why there was a deep truth in one of the statements of that unfortunate Iraqi Minister of Information. We were all laughing at him during the last Iraq War because of his ridiculous statements denying the obvious. But at one point, I claim, what he told was absolutely true. When towards the end of the war he was asked "is it true that Americans already control, American forces, part of the Baghdad airport?", he said "not true, Americans don't control even themselves." Perfect truth. Why? Because they don't know what they know. And this, what you don't know that you know, controls you, but you don't control it. Okay, so now we come to the really real, real core of the real, much more fundamental than this still symbolic real, but which paradoxically is at the same time the most virtual real. Let us think about attractors in mathematics. For example, you have small pieces of iron and you throw them around a magnetic field. They are dispersed, following a certain shape, infinitely approaching this shape, but this shape of course is not existing it itself. It's just something that you can abstract, isolate from the dispersion of the small pieces of iron. That's the idea of virtual real. It's a shape—this is the real of this field—but it's not, it doesn't exist in itself. It's just an abstract form which structures the disposition of actually existing elements around it. Now, what has this to do with psychoanalytic problematic or even more with political problematic? My idea is: a lot. Let's think about the precise status of trauma in psychoanalysis. That is to say, more closely, Freud shifted his position, as we all know, with regard to trauma. He shifted his position in a way which is strangely enough parallel to the shift in Einstein's theory of relativity, the shift from a special to general theory of relativity. This shift in theory of relativity concerns the reference to the curved space, curvature of space. As most of us I hope know, for Einstein first, in a first approach, it was the presence of the density of matter, of stuff, which curved the space. Space was originally perceived as empty space, abstractly was symmetrical, non-curved, then the presence of stuff curves it. But then, in a second step, Einstein accomplished a wonderful reversal. He just turned the terms around. It was not the presence of matter, of stuff, which curves the space; it was on the contrary the curvature of the space which was primordial. And what we perceive as matter is just a kind of reified, fetishist misperception of a purely formal curvature of the space. And I claim it's exactly like this in the psychoanalytic notion of trauma. In a first approach, Freud imagined trauma as some kind of dense, raw presence, brutal intrudes into our symbolic space and curves it. Quite literally, let's imagine that I have my well-balanced symbolic space, then something traumatic happens to me, I'm raped, I witness a terrifying event, I'm tortured, whatever. And because of the traumatic impact of this event, my symbolic space gets curved. Some things can no longer be symbolized,
unknown
the function of those symbols has to be taken over with other symbols, there is a kind of imbalance, there is a gap
the function of those symbols has to be taken over with other symbols, there is a kind of imbalance, there is a gap
Slavoj Žižek
in my symbolic space. This would be the first approach. So, I think in clear parallel
in my symbolic space. This would be the first approach. So, I think in clear parallel
unknown
to Einstein,
to Einstein,
Slavoj Žižek
we can see how here it's the other way around. The primordial fact is not some brutal intrusion of the real, of a traumatic real. The primordial fact, and also the primordial real, is a purely formal imbalance. The symbolic space is curved, it's cut across by an antagonism, imbalanced and so on. And to account for this, you need a reference to some real, which is of course the real, the real in the sense of the traumatic appearance. It's a lure here, a trap.
we can see how here it's the other way around. The primordial fact is not some brutal intrusion of the real, of a traumatic real. The primordial fact, and also the primordial real, is a purely formal imbalance. The symbolic space is curved, it's cut across by an antagonism, imbalanced and so on. And to account for this, you need a reference to some real, which is of course the real, the real in the sense of the traumatic appearance. It's a lure here, a trap.